Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Building Support and Capacity at the State and Local Level

Lorene Alba of the American Association of School Administrators led one of the three morning breakout sessions using a checklist for school districts addressing the needs of students with asthma.  Her main question to the groups of three is "Who is making your ask?" Using interactive exercises, she empowered each group to come to their own conclusion using a facilitated process of discovery.

Each of the three groups came up with their own response to the "ask" question.  One group said it was critical to identify the person who we need to approach for approval and ask "what's in it for them?"  Their example was to promote an Asthma Educational Plan requiring four sessions at 35 minutes a piece.  Their "ask" was to pull the kids out of class 15 minutes before and 10 minutes after.  The reward for the principal?  The astma team does all the work, a win-win situation.  The result? A 20 percent reduction in absenteeism related to asthma.  Lorene told the team "If you are told no, then you didn't ask the right question."

No comments:

Post a Comment